James Bond 2049

You know what, good for Amazon. Everyone rightfully shit on them for wrestling away the James Bond franchise from the Broccolis and they immediately turned the narrative around by landing the hottest director on the market right now. All that Denis Villeneuve does is hit balls out of the park, from Prisoners to Sicario to Blade Runner 2049 to Dune. If you want to shut your critics right the fuck up then you get this guy on your team.

With this announcement, the countdown is on. We’re only months, possibly weeks, away from the casting of a new James Bond actor and with Villeneuve on board and an infinite amount of money at his disposal, James Bond has entered A-list territory. Not that James Bond wasn’t A-list before. Academy Award winning director Sam Mendes already helmed two 007 pictures. But this time something feels different and I’m not sure what to think about it.

Villeneuve has a distinct style; a certain way his pictures move: visually rich, slow paced, big ideas, etc. In some ways, he’s not all that different from Christopher Nolan. But unlike Nolan, there’s nothing about Villeneuve’s filmography that screams James Bond 007. And given how big studios have fucked up big named properties in the last decade, I still think Amazon has to prove itself. Villeneuve doesn’t change that.

No one bats 1.000.

Maybe a part of me doesn’t want Bond to be “elevated” material. Mind you, even before Amazon, the Broccolis began this elevated process during the Daniel Craig era. But I think old school fans like myself are screaming for simpler times. Bond doesn’t need an emotional arc. Just make the movies episodic, ya know?

But the Villeneuve announcement has received an overwhelmingly positive reception on the internet and the only one who’s not excited is me. And I think I know why: for the first time, the next James Bond that will be cast will be younger than me. That’s not a big deal, it’s just an unusual experience. I’m beginning to feel my age. And that’s when you realize that they are no longer making movies with YOU in mind.

So this is very much a ME problem. I’ve told y’all time and time again: if I ever become one of those old guys who can’t roll with the changes then you have my expressed permission to find me in a dark alleyway and shoot me dead. But that doesn’t make things any easier so bear with me.

With all this said, the silver lining is that at least the James Bond franchise is in better hands than Star Trek 🤷‍♂️

Anaideia 52

Randy wailed and wailed while the Madam said nothing. She stood motionless and silent and her head held low. I stormed past without acknowledging her and siphoned some gas from the Cadillac then lit the limousine on fire. Randy tried to wrestle my hand away as I reached into his jacket pocket to steal his wallet but I cracked him on the head with the butt of my gun. When that was done, I took the remaining cash from the corpses of the Dale and the driver and I stuffed the cash into my pocket and shouted to the old man.

“Come on Jim,” I said. “We’re leaving this shithole.”

Jim gladly complied and climbed into the passenger’s seat of the Cadillac. Before sitting in the driver’s seat, I looked to the Madam one last time. “Good luck,” was all I said to her. Then I shut the door and started the engine. As we driving away, the Madam was still standing like a statue in the rear view mirror. Then I adjusted the mirror to my liking.

We drove through Penelope’s pass for the last time and back into the barren Utah desert where we traversed the country roads and back to the interstate. I simply headed west. I didn’t bother to count the cash on hand but I reckoned it wasn’t much.

“We probably only have 40 bucks,” I said to Jim. “Do you think we can make it to Los Angeles?”

“Shit if I know,” he said.

It was another roll of the dice; one of many that I took since the journey began. The flat and unappealing landscape left little to admire so my mind started to wander. There were so many that passed on in this odyssey: the Chechens, the Chinese, Tom, Burl, Karl, the prisoners, the men in the wilderness, Vic.

And Dale.

My time was coming. But it wasn’t today.

On a single tank of gas, we made it to Sacramento and at California’s capital I took the 5 southbound to Los Angeles. I drove straight on through the night. It was clear that the Cadillac would run out of gas somewhere between Stockton and Bakersfield and when we reached Delano during dead of darkness the engine petered out.

“How are your legs, Jim?” I asked the old man.

“Terrible,” he said.

“Well, we’re gonna have to ditch this piece of shit and hitchhike.”

We got out of the vehicle and I threw the keys on the ground. I stuck out my thumb and continued walking southbound and prayed to god that highway patrol wouldn’t stop us.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Anaideia 51

Welcome to Utah the sign read. I knew exactly where we were headed; it was to the charred remains of the Candyland Brothel where so many of Randy’s victims met their end. It was at the thick of day when the Cadillac and limousine pulled off into an undisclosed dirt road and down through the mountain pass where we braved the threat of Penelope with the late Vic Weathers weeks earlier. It felt like ages ago. Finally we entered the dry lake basin and there in the center was the remains of Randy’s empire in the desert. With his pistol ready, the driver ordered us to exit the limo.

Randy climbed out of the driver’s seat of the Cadillac while gnawing on a Slim Jim. The Madam got out on the passenger’s side and Old Jim from the backseat. Randy offered Dale and me some of his processed jerky.

“Shove it up your ass,” I retorted to his offer. But Dale accepted.

Randy took a deep breath and looked around him. “Such a beautiful country,” he said.

“It’s dead,” I replied. “Just like I will be. And with any luck you will be too.”

He spat and shook his head. “Okay then,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.”

“I have something I want to say,” Dale interjected. “Before I die, I’d like to say I feel blessed to have had the time of my life. I never thought that…” But before he could finish, the driver lifted his Ruger to the back of his head and pulled the trigger. The bullet exited his forehead and his body fell limply to the ground.

I turned my eyes.

And when the shock of his death wore off, Randy signaled to the driver to shoot me next. “Just a moment,” Old Jim interrupted. “I’ll handle this.”

“Dad,” Randy pleaded, “just let him do it.”

“No no, it’s fine.”

Jim checked his six shooter and walked over to me. “Sorry James,” he informed me.

“I don’t take it personally,” I said.

Jim relieved the driver and I looked to the shadows on the ground to see his pistol aimed at my head. Then I looked Randy dead in the eye and the seconds felt like eternity.

There was a gun shot. I again looked at the shadows and watched the driver fall to the ground. When I turned around, he had a hole blasted through his temple.

“Dad! What are you doing?” Randy shouted.

“Well I figured I couldn’t shoot my own grandson,” Jim reasoned.

Randy and the Madam were stunned silent. I nodded a thanks to Jim and picked up the Ruger from the driver’s lifeless body. “Well Randy, it looks like you’ll be dead sooner than I expected,” I said.

“James, don’t be stupid,” he pleaded.

I looked at Dale’s corpse. “Don’t feel too bad for him,” I said to Randy. “He knew what was coming. What’s about to happen has nothing to do with that.”

“What’s about to happen?”

I looked to the mountain pass and then up at the lingering sun. “You claim this as your empire,” I said, “but you have a challenger. I suspect that the sun will set behind those mountains in about four hours. It’s possible to reach the pass before then. I would know.”

Then I shot him in the kneecap.

While he pathetically screamed in agony, I came closer. “Unfortunately I think you can still make it to the pass before Penelope can get to you,” I said, “so I’m gonna need an additional handicap.”

So I shot him in the other kneecap.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Anaideia 50

As dawn came and I glanced out the window past the rocky alpine to the great blue Lake Tahoe beyond, I chagrined at my misfortune of not being shot and having my body dumped in that watery grave where so many unnamed met their fate. In that moment that was my biggest regret. Instead the fate that awaited Dale and me was a shallow and sandy one in the desert.

I always hated the desert.

But the limousine followed Randy’s Cadillac down the winding roads until intersecting with civilization in Reno. We pressed forward still, eastward into the Nevadan abyss and our destination unknown. The curvy roads gave way to the straight and predictable and the evergreen Sierras transitioned to the golden dead of high desert. Dale and I didn’t talk. As I recalled the last months, I realized my decisions led to not only my demise but his as well. I owed it to him to say something. The right thing.

So I apologized.

“What for?” he asked me. “If it weren’t for you, I would have blown my brains out in West Covina months ago.”

“Because of the toilet factory?” I inquired.

Dale gazed out the window in a rare moment of self reflection. He stroked his chin as if finding the clarity that so eluded him. “Damn the toilet factory,” he said. “That ain’t got nothing to do with the price of tea in China.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” I said.

“Well,” he said as he straightened himself out, “I suppose I shouldn’t be telling you this. But we’re about to die so it makes little sense to keep this bottled up. But anyways, my bitch of a wife, she’s been dead for years.”

“Huh?” I asked, slightly flabbergasted. “But why didn’t you say anything?”

“Well, it’s a bit more complicated than dying.”

“How so?”

“I killed her.”

I didn’t know what to say. To tell the truth I wasn’t all that surprised. Maybe I’ve always known; Dale struck me as a guy that would kill his wife. But it made little difference now. I let him spill the beans; that was all that was left to do.

“What happened?” I asked.

“You know, I’m not sure,” he explained. “I knew that she was fuckin around on me. But I didn’t want to say anything to her. I didn’t want her leaving me, ya know? Who would want to be with a sad sack of shit like me? But I guess something finally gave and I got drunk and took my shotgun out. The next morning I found her brains splattered all over the trailer. Of course I don’t remember killing her. But I panicked and took her body and cut her up into dozens of pieces and scattered her all across Southern California. What’s a feller to do, ya know? I figured I’d go to the grave with that knowledge. Now I guess we both will.”

With Dale’s conscience cleared, there was nothing left to say. The wheels kept rolling down I-80 further into the abyss.

TO BE CONTINUED…

The stand still

Big day today. We’ve got military parades. Protests. War. Political assassinations. It feels like a lot. But there’s one quote that’s been floating around the internet lately that both haunts me and comforts me: nothing ever happens. We live in an anti-climactic world.

Of course in a normal world, things like a military parade and war and protests and political assassinations would be pretty big climaxes in and of themselves. But those days are long gone.

And I mean LONG gone.

There could be a nuclear holocaust tomorrow AND an alien invasion and we’d still go to work on Monday and think “goddamn. Things are crazy huh?”. But that won’t stop you from clocking in and riding the clock by sitting on the toilet for five hours. People are tired and worn out.

I certainly am.

But I don’t think we live in unprecedented times. The times are always precedented. If you think that this is the first time humanity has ever faced a societal collapse then I’ve got some bad news for you buddy. Eric Cline might want to have a few words with you.

The Bronze Age collapse is one that immediately comes to mind; maybe the fall of the Roman Empire which led Europe from antiquity into the Medieval period. But we’ve seen this shit before. The latest iteration is the Digital Age collapse.

But the good news is that with the end of every epoch comes a new paradigm shift. The bad news is that we probably won’t live to see it.

Enjoy your weekend 🙂

Anaideia 49

Randy finished his glass of scotch and paced around the basement. At that moment there was nothing I wanted more than to be done with this charade so I looked at Dale who was unbothered by this tension. “Well Randy,” I declared, “I don’t forgive you. So let’s stop pussyfooting around and get this over with.”

Randy stopped pacing and looked at the Madam and her eyes drifted to the floor. Then he sighed and poured another glass. “You know what this means don’t you?” he asked me.

“It means in a matter of minutes we’ll dead and buried,” I said plainly.

He swallowed the scotch whole. “But what about your friend there?” he asked, referring to Dale.

“Oh, me?” said Dale. “Yeah I’ve know that this was coming for a long time.”

I could’ve been wrong but I thought I saw a small tear streaking down Randy’s cheek. Whatever emotions he might’ve been feeling, he concealed them well with his following statements. “Okay then,” he said, “but I won’t do it here. This is my home. I wish that I could have given you a better ending but I must have you two escorted to the desert and shot. I’m very sorry.”

“Shove your apologies,” I said.

Randy signaled to the driver and the driver briefly left the room. A moment later, Old Jim stepped out from behind the door with his six shooter ready. “Jim!” I gasped.

“How’s your aim dad?” Randy asked him.

“I may be old, but I can still shoot the pecker off a…”

“Alright alright,” Randy interrupted him. “Take these men out to the desert and have them killed.”

“Dad?!” I shouted.

“Yeah, Old Jim is my dad. Which makes him your grandpa I suppose. I thought it was obvious. You’re both named James. Anyway, let’s get this show on the road…”

Christ, I thought. It was obvious. But it didn’t matter anymore. Old Jim and the driver approached us and took us by the arm. “Hello James,” Jim said to me.

“Jim! Papaw!”

“Papaw,” said Jim. “I remember my papaw. Legend has it that his dick was two feet long and he strangled Wild Bill Hickok with…”

“Dad!” Randy interrupted. “Enough with the stories! We have a job to do!”

“And where are you going?” I asked Randy as he was picking up several Manila envelopes.

“I have a meeting with the Vietnamese in an hour. Sorry that I can’t make it.”

“So a meeting with the Vietnamese is more important than the death of your own son?”

Randy stood motionless at my challenge. “But this is a very important meeting,” he said.

I shook my head. “How typical of Randy,” I said rhetorically. “He can’t even look his own son in the eye.”

He slammed the glass onto the tiled floor and it shattered into a thousand pieces. The Madam was startled by the sudden burst. “Alright! Goddamn you!” he shouted. “If this is what you want then I will grant you your last request! I will, by god, journey with you to the desert where you will meet your demise!”

“Thanks Randy,” I said. “That’s very sweet of you.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Anaideia 48

Randy didn’t know what to make of Susan. He sipped the scotch mere feet from her face with her eyes bowed to the floor. I turned my head to see a tear stream down her face. Though this was the moment she had been waiting for, nothing had prepared her for it. “I don’t think I know you,” Randy said.

Susan palmed her eyes and lifted her head to face him. When I looked at Randy, I could tell he was genuinely perplexed. “Where is my mother?” Susan managed to squeak out.

Randy squinted his eyes and took another sip. He lowered the glass and placed it in his left hand. “Darling,” he said, putting his right hand to her cheek, “I’m sorry but I don’t understand your question.”

“Where is MY mother,” she repeated.

“If you could tell me who you are, perhaps I could help,” he said, taken back by her sudden forcefulness.

“Susan.”

“Susan who?”

“Susan Brucetti.”

He took his hand off her face and had another sip. “Brucetti?” he asked and swallowed hard. “I believe a Lyonette Brucetti was under my employment many years ago. Is that your mother?”

Susan nodded and lowered her head again. Randy’s face began to blush and he nervously scratched his head. “I’m afraid that I haven’t seen Lyonette in some time,” he explained. “Last I heard, she was living in Chico with her husband. I apologize, but I haven’t been keeping close tabs on her.”

“You’re a liar,” Susan said.

“Pardon?”

“You’re a liar. You sold her into sex slavery.”

“W-why would I do that?”

“Because that’s the kind of man you are!”

“Susan, sweetheart, I think you have the wrong idea. You see, Lyonette and I were lovers for a very long time. I loved her. Why would I sell someone I love into slavery?”

“Then why would she abandon me?!”

Randy turned around and refused to face us. He sat his glass of scotch down and rubbed his brow. “I’m sorry Susan,” he said, “had I of known, I would have done something.”

“What do you mean?”

“We had a child together. A girl.”

Susan looked at me with wide eyes. No words came. In real time I could see her heart sink to her feet and Dale shook his head. “Told you it was a mistake,” he uttered under his breath.

“Goddamnit Dale,” I said.

“What was a mistake?” asked Randy, still not facing us.

“Forget it,” I said.

“I’m gonna be sick,” said Susan.

Randy picked up the glass again and ignored the comment entirely. He turned around and leaned against the table. “Susan, my dear, I think you should leave,” he said. “I don’t want you to be a part of what’s about to happen.”

Susan quietly nodded and the driver took her by the arm and escorted her upstairs. She never looked back at me. She was defeated.

When she was gone and the shock wore off, I looked at Randy. “Two damaged children,” I said. “That’s your real legacy.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Anaideia 47

It was a shame that we arrived in Tahoe after nightfall. The mountain vistas and alpine would have been a glorious sight to see before death. But the limousine descended into obscure wavy backroads before arriving at Randy’s rocky sprawl and the driver exited the vehicle with a Ruger ready. “Welcome to the Furie estate,” he said after opening the backseat door. “Please step out of the vehicle or be shot.”

We complied with his demand and stood in a row in the late night mountain air and the driver waved us in through the immaculate entrance. Inside the mansion, the walls were adorned with bear skins and moose heads with a few human skulls for added effect. But before I could take it all in we were pushed through the house and down the stairs into a padded and soundproofed basement where on the other end Randy was yelling racial slurs through a microphone while playing Baldur’s Gate. We stood on one end of the basement while the driver shuffled to the other end to inform Mr. Furie.

“Your guests sir,” the driver said.

Randy swiveled around in his chair and when he laid eyes upon us he smiled. “Welcome! Welcome!” he greeted.

“Randy, if this is supposed to scare me then you’re doing a shitty job,” I said.

“Scare you? Why would I try to scare you?” he asked.

He stood up and flattened out his maroon smoking jacket and the Madam stepped through a hidden door disguised as a book case and handed him a glass of scotch. He took the glass then sniffed and swirled it. “The real reason I asked you here is to beg for your forgiveness,” he informed us.

“Why should I forgive you?” I said.

Randy squinted to bear through what seemed to be his internal torment. “Oh why can’t you see the burden placed upon my shoulders?” he posed. “The whole world pleads for forbidden contraband and services and those screams fall into my ears like cries in the night.”

“I can’t imagine the pain you must be in,” I said sarcastically.

“No man can imagine it,” he said, not picking up on my sarcasm. “I come from a long line of service providers; an ancient lineage we are.”

“No doubt,” I said. “But what does that have to do with me?”

“I’ve always desired you to be a part of this proud tradition,” he said with a tinge of mournfulness. “There’s no greater honor than a son following his father’s footsteps.”

“I’m sorry I disappointed you,” I replied.

Randy stepped a little closer with scotch in hand to look us up and down. He could tell something was amiss. “Where’s the fellow among you who destroyed my desert fortress?” he asked.

“He died in the wilderness weeks after,” I told him.

“A tragedy for you no doubt. But a fitting end for a warrior.”

“He got what was coming to him.”

“A fate that we all must face.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Anaideia 46

After blowing my winnings at the casino bar, I stumbled back to the suite and I fumbled around with the keys outside of the door for second before finding the key card. When I unlocked the door, all the lights were off and the suite was eerily quiet. I had assumed that Dale was fuckin off somewhere in the city so I turned on the lights in the foyer and proceeded to the kitchen. When I cut on the lights, it illuminated both the kitchen and the living room and I saw the hotel guards along with their manager holding Dale hostage. There were no baseball bats this time. Just guns and knives with one to Dale’s throat.

“Sorry ol buddy,” Dale regretfully said. “There were just too many of them.”

“It’s alright Dale,” I told him.

The hotel manager stepped forward and ordered me to place the Walther on the floor and put my hands behind my head. So I dropped the gun on the ground. “If you check the receipts at the bar, you’ll see that all the money I won was spent at your casino,” I said. “Except for the booze which you clearly overcharged me for, you didn’t loose a single cent on me.”

“I don’t care about the money,” the manager said. “Mr. Furie’s patience has grown thin. We will be escorting you out of the hotel where there’s a limousine waiting for you downstairs.”

“Will I have time to pack my bags?”

“I don’t think you’ll be needing them sir.”

A guard put a gun to my rib cage and Dale and I were escorted to the elevator then down into the lobby where we did the walk of shame in front of casino patrons. Outside, we were thrown into the backseat of a limo where Susan was already inside. It was clear she had been treated to the same care we had just received. “Hello fellas,” she mournfully spoke.

“Evening Susan,” I said.

When we were all inside, the manager handed me a paper. “Here’s your receipt sir,” he explained. “If you take the survey at the very bottom then you’ll receive a 1.5% discount on your next stay.”

“Thank you,” I told him. Then I crumbled up the paper and tossed it out the window. When we were all buckled up, the driver rolled down the front seat glass and smiled. “We should be arriving in Tahoe within an hour,” he said.

“Is there any booze back here?” I ask him.

“Nope!” he said. Then he rolled the glass back up.

“I suppose that this is our last hurrah,” Dale said.

“Eh, I wouldn’t say that,” I told him. “I’ve defeated Randy before and there’s no reason to think I can’t do so again.”

“But you’re drunk,” Susan told me.

“Shit, I didn’t think of that,” I said. “Well look at it this way: no one wants to live forever, right? And who said that? Freddie Mercury. And look what happened to him. They made a movie about him! So if you want to achieve immortality then that’s the way you do it. You have to die for people to remember you forever. So I think what’s happening now is a good thing.”

No one said another word to another as we traveled westbound to Tahoe.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Anaideia 45

While I was losing thousands on the slots, casino “security” was breathing down my neck and waving their baseball bats. After losing my final quarter, I had enough and turned around to shout at them. “There!” I said. “I lost all my life savings to the Wheel of Fortune machine! You can tell your boss that he finally made a profit off me!”

The lead guard swung his bat one last time and gave me a mean look. “Swing that bat one more time and I’ll shove it up your ass,” I retorted.

The guards lowered their bats and dispersed. “Pussies!” I shouted at them.

With my last $10 I noticed Susan drinking alone at the bar. We hadn’t said a word to each other since the fuck sesh the night before and I felt like I needed to clear the air. I laid the $10 bill on the bar and ordered a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. “That’ll be $9.95,” the bartender said.

“Fuck,” I said under my breath. “Alright, bring it to me.”

Susan was silent as I pulled up a stool next to hers. She was clutching her beer and was deep in thought. The bartender brought the drink and laid the nickel on the counter. “Can I get you anything else?” he asked.

“No. Kiss my ass,” I said and the barman bowed and wondered off.

I sipped my beer and lamented to Susan. “Life is hard enough without having to be charged $10 for a PBR,” I said. “Is that all that motivates this world? Greed and avarice? If I were the Old Testament god, I too would smite the world with a mighty flood and repopulate it with a race of pure beings touched only by angelic blood. That was where god fucked up. He thought Noah was the only man without blemish and look what that got us: Reno goddamn Nevada. I say curse god and all of existence for permitting such a horrid place!”

Susan said nothing to this.

“So anyways, how are you?” I ask.

“Fine,” she said.

“I would buy you another drink but I’ve only got a dime to my name.”

“It’s okay.”

“Do you think the Knicks will win the Finals?”

“No.”

“Sorry for not shaving my balls. I’ve been out in the wilderness for awhile and haven’t had the time.”

Susan took a huge gulp of her beer and looked at me. “Now that we have Randy in our sights, I don’t know how to feel,” she explained.

“I think you’re putting way too much thought into this,” I said. “Randy is an idiot.”

“I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to track him down. I can’t shake the feeling that all of this has been in vain.”

“Life is all vanity,” I told her. Then I picked up the nickel and held it up. “But life is short. And I’m not gonna waste it on second guessing myself. Things can’t be shit forever. Just you watch.”

Out of defiance to the casino, I proudly took that nickel and placed into a penny slot. The wheels turned before landing on three straight nooses and lights began flashing with an endless amount coins piled into the troth. The guards reappeared with baseball bats ready as I tried to cash the coins so I lifted my shirt to reveal the Walther PPQ tucked away in the waist of my pants.

“Try it,” I taunted to the lead guard. “The manager said he didn’t want a bloodbath in his casino. You wouldn’t want to go against his wishes eh?”

The guards again lowered their bats and dispersed. I held the wad of cash and beamed. “Maybe I’m the one touched by god,” I said to myself.

TO BE CONTINUED…